The Christmas Cantata (The Liturgical Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF Page A

'Great Unwashed,' I think I'm offended."
    "As well you should be. According to their philosophy, music and the other arts need be accessible only to a select cadre of the enlightened. Everyone else would be doomed to listen to jazz or something equally pedestrian."
    "Are we finished with that particular artistic view yet?" asked Meg.
    "Not by a long shot," I said with a chuckle. I played a few bars at the beginning of the piece. "You know, although Elle de Fournier starts the cantata in this avant-garde style, within a few pages, she begins to break out of it. Almost as if she's turning her back on the sophisticated artistic scene she's spent years becoming part of, and deciding to reach instead for her roots. Listen to how this melody begins to develop."
    I played the oboe line over top of a cluster of early 20th century polychords. Then slowly, over the next sixteen measures, the cacophony began to relax as the melody seemed to coerce the accompanying dissonance into submission. Not totally, mind you. Each instrument had its own agenda and the discord would swell occasionally, but the melody wouldn't relent. It pushed its way back into prominence and the other voices had to give way.
    "I know that tune," said Meg. "It's a hymn, isn't it?"
    "It is," I said. "And listen to what it does."
    I continued playing and the hymn turned on itself, weaving in and out amongst the voices, first here, then there. It wasn't a well known Christmas hymn, but rather an old melody that had flavors of its Scotch-Irish heritage. A haunting, modal tune that may or may not have originated in the Appalachians, but that had certainly been embraced by them, echoing from their crags and hollows as it was sung by generations of mountain folk.
    "I'm not convinced," said Meg. "It's not pretty. Christmas music needs to be pretty. Chestnuts roasting and snow falling and angels and Ave Maria and O Magnum Mysterium . Stuff like that."
    "We need to do something different this year. I need something different."
    "You're just in a bad mood. Crabby," said Meg, decidedly. "Like everyone else in town. Just today, I was having lunch at the Ginger Cat and when I asked politely for some Pesto alla genovese , Annie barked that there wasn't any, and why didn't I try to get some down at the Slab since I liked eating there so much."
    "The Slab doesn't serve pesto, my pet," I said absently, continuing to concentrate on one of the bassoon parts which had inexplicably just changed clefs.
    "Yes, darling . That's the point! Are you even listening?"
    "Hey," I said, stopping in the middle of what sounded like a D-flat "demolished" chord and looking up at her. "Don't point your Christmas crabbiness at me. I don't even think I would like Pesto alla whatever."
    Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, you'd like it," she said through clenched teeth. "You'd like it a lot!"
    "I don't think I would ," I growled back. "In fact, you could wrap it in bacon, deep fry it in hog fat, and top it with a pork chop, and I wouldn't even taste it!"
    Meg laughed, a low, wonderful laugh that I loved to hear. "I'll take that as an apology for your inattentiveness," she said with a giggle. "How about if I put some John Rutter carols on the stereo to cheer us up?"
    I grunted at her. "Bah," I said. "Humbug!"
    Meg tapped at the music on the piano. "Well, Mr. Grumpy, if you like this thing, why not do it with the choir? If you're right, maybe it will improve everyone's mood. Lord knows, we don't have anything else to work on. You haven't given us anything but a couple of extra-gloomy Advent anthems."
    "Maybe I will," I said. "And those anthems aren't gloomy. They're contemplative."
    "Oh, I see," said Meg. "Contemplative, eh? Pensive, perhaps? Meant to remind us of our mortality as we repent and prepare for the Glory of Christmas?"
    "Exactly," I said. "Advent classics."
    "Nonsense. They're gloomy. Gloomy and forlorn."
    I could see her point. "Well," I agreed, "perhaps my choices in choir anthems have been a